Bubbles All The Way (26 page)

Mama opened her mouth to object, but I went on. “She also said that I’ve been a poor mother all the way around. I allowed Jane to pierce herself all over the place and date lowlifes like G and drink A-Treat and eat Tastykakes for breakfast. There’s also the issue of my pattern of being away from home at night, either when I was taking courses at Two Guys or working for the
News-Times
.

“In short. I am maternal scum. And Dr. Caswell says she is prepared to deliver this report in court if Dan wants full custody of Jane. Which brings me back to why I’m getting married. That’s exactly what he’ll do, seek full custody if I don’t marry him.”

For once, Mama was struck dumb. She sat there, fiddling with the toothpick, saying nothing.

Finally, I had to ask, “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking how did my daughter who’s so clueless on the outside and so smart on the inside get so clueless on the inside, too.”

I was incensed. Where was the sympathy I was looking for? The understanding shoulder? The
there, there, pat, pat, you’re doing the right thing
?

“Listen, honey,” Mama said, “I’ve worked this farm of life long enough to know a cow patty and that’s what Dan’s delivering here. Cow patties.”

I was shocked. Mama never swears.

“You’re a grown woman. I can’t tell you how to lead your life. But if I was you, I’d be thinking long and hard how to undercut this slimy, adulterous ex-husband of yours so you can walk away from this wedding with not only your daughter, but also a signed, sworn IOU from Dan that he will pay for her college education, and grad school if she so chooses.”

I was impressed. When Mama gets on her muscle, she is unstoppable.

“What happened to Dan the decent, hardworking blabbity-blah?” I said.

“That’s when I figured he was going to be my son-in-law again. Now, after hearing this, he is nothing more than a street cleaner to me, a bum on the sidewalk who picks through cans.”

I bit a nail, a nasty, nervous habit of mine. “I’m not sure I can risk it. I mean, Dan is part of the court system. He knows the judges, the cops, the clerks, everyone. He pays them off.”

“What you should be asking yourself is if you can
risk
going insane living with that leech. And as for the judges and all that, you might also want to ask yourself how many of them would like nothing more than to see Dan Ritter go down in a hellish ball of flames once and for all.”

Memo to self:
Never get on Mama’s bad side.

“And as for Stiletto, do you love him?”

I straightened my posture and said in as sincere a tone as I could manage when speaking to a woman in a pink chenille robe and a head full of curlers, “I do.”

“Do you think he loves you?”

“Yes.” I paused, making sure in my heart if this was true. “I believe he does.”

“Then you better tell him right quick. That man’s been jerked around more than a kielbasa at a weenie roast.”

She was right. Mama was absolutely right. I’d been living in a fog, the way I was dutifully following Dan’s lead and submitting myself to his threats. I loved Stiletto. Stiletto loved me. That was simply the way it was.

We would spend our lives together. Yes. I wanted to shout this out loud from the top of my lungs: WE ARE GOING TO SPEND OUR LIVES TOGETHER, STILETTO AND I. MY DREAM WILL COME TRUE!

It was too late to call him with the wonderful news now since it was after midnight. I would tell him first thing tomorrow. I closed my eyes and pictured us under the Hill-to-Hill Bridge in his Jeep, our favorite spot, and how thrilled and happy he would be when I quietly, lovingly declared that I would be his wife as he’d hoped. That I would be honored to wear his ring for eternity.

And then I’d tell Dan to take a hike.

I opened my eyes to find Mama staring at me, a half smile on her face. “Dear child, you got it bad. How in the world did you think you were going to get through that wedding when you were so in love with someone else?”

“I was going to hold the hand of my daughter and focus on the fact that I was marrying Dan for her.”

Mama placed her own wrinkled, veined hand over mine and squeezed it to show she loved me, too. “Don’t ever forget how special you are, Bubbles. You’re more special than you know.”

“Only to a mother.”

“No!” She regarded me squarely, her jaw set in a firm lock. “Don’t ever think that. When I tell you you’re special, I’m not just blowing smoke, Bubbles. You’re special. You have and will always be my precious baby, my little pretty Lithuanian princess.”

My eyes felt hot as tears bubbled to the surface. Little pretty Lithuanian princess. Mama hadn’t called me that in years. That was what she used to say when I was a little girl playing dress up in my pink Disney Cinderella gown and plastic tiara. She’d exclaim, “There’s my little pretty Lithuanian princess.” And then she’d curtsy.

So very long ago.

Caught in a moment of utter nostalgic sappiness, Mama and I quickly brushed off our tears. Mama blew her nose into a paper napkin and I blinked rapidly. We were not the types to let ourselves get mushy. At least not for long.

Mama changed the subject. “By the way, you should know that Ern Bender’s mother is holding a shiva or sitting a shiva or whatever it is at our high-rise.”

This showed how fast news spread in my mother’s circles. Already they knew that Ern Bender was dead and what funeral preparations were under way and who would be bringing the potato salad and pineapple upside-down cake. “What’s a shiva?”

“I’m not sure, exactly. I think it’s a Jewish wake that starts the day of the burial and lasts seven days and there’s no vodka.”

No vodka at a wake? In our circles, that was like not having wine at communion or cake at a birthday.

“Anyway, I thought it would be nice for you to stop by tomorrow and pay your respects. Genevieve and I are going at seven, if you want to come with. It’s a habit, to go to wakes at seven. We’re bringing a kosher honey cake. Bring a geranium. Should be fun!”

Only Mama and Genevieve would find a wake fun.

The phone rang and Mama and I both jumped.

“Holy hell!” Mama exclaimed, checking the time on her watch. “It’s so late. I could have sworn I took that sucker off the hook.”

I rushed to answer it, fully prepared to tell Dan now that the wedding was over.

“Don’t even start, Dan. I’ve got something to tell you.”

There was silence.

“Bubbles?”

It was Sandy.

T
he whine of Jane’s blow-dryer woke me from a deep sleep that had not come easily. I spent most of the night drifting off and then twitching awake remembering Sandy’s odd phone call, the way she sounded drugged and dazed.

Drugs. They were everywhere in this story. Though, my understanding of methamphetamines was that they jazzed you, not depressed you. And Sandy sounded very depressed. Understandable, when I thought about it.

My bedside clock read seven oh one a.m. It was still dark outside, a cold dark, though not in the Yablonsky house. Right now it was a tropical eighty degrees. This was what happened when you had Mama and Genevieve as housemates. I should have put a lock on the thermostat. Either that or opened a spa.

I leaned over the edge of the bed, found the Lehigh phone book and looked up the number for Martin’s bakery. He answered sounding busy, repeating an order for two crullers, one glazed, one cinnamon, and coffee.

My stomach growled. I would have killed for a bedside delivery of a glazed cruller and coffee.

“Yo!” Martin said.

“Hey, Martin, this is Bubbles—”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute. I ain’t Martin. Who’s this again?”

“Bubbles . . . I—”

“I’m transferring you upstairs. Hold on.”

Upstairs was the Sears-encrusted apartment Martin shared with Sandy. He answered on the first ring with a desperate, “Sandy?”

That was more like Martin.

“No, sorry, Bubbles.”

“Oh.” He was deflated.

“But I did talk to Sandy last night. That’s why I’m calling.”

All I heard was Martin’s heavy breathing.

“Martin?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if we should talk on the phone. I think the cops might have the lines tapped.”

“You’re kidding?” This investigation into Debbie’s death was really getting out of control. Okay, so I was partly to blame for screaming bloody murder, but still.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” he said. “I didn’t sleep at all last night. I’m so worried.”

“Don’t worry. Sandy told me she’s fine. She said she’s in a safe place and she’ll come home when she gets her head together.”

“Head together. Why does she have to get her head together? Why can’t she come home and be with me? Whatever lie she’s too embarrassed to admit, I’ll understand. We’ll work through it.”

Little silver bells—different ones from the ones I’d been listening to Bing Crosby croon for weeks now—went off in my head. Talk about your ring-a-ling.

“Martin? What do you mean by, ‘Whatever lie she’s too embarrassed to admit’?”

“I wish I knew. It was what she said to me in our last conversation. She kept apologizing and saying stuff like she never meant to lie to me, that she just wasn’t ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“I have no idea. That’s what’s driving me mad. I can’t even work. I can’t take a shower or eat. All I’m doing is sitting by the phone and waiting for her to call or come home.”

“What else did she say?”

“Nothing. There was the sound of a police siren in the background at the end of the call, and then she told me she loved me and always would. I didn’t even know her window had been shot out. It was only because Detectives Burge and Wilson were here, going through our apartment, that I found out. They heard it on their scanners. You can imagine how disturbed I was after learning about that.”

“Yes.” I listened to Jane pounding up and down the hall. “Did the police ever say why they were searching your apartment?”

“Supposedly, though I didn’t get it. The lawyer I hired—a guy named Jack Doyle of Doyle, Doyle, Doyle and Lefkowitcz—read the warrant. He said they were looking for evidence of certain prescription drugs Sandy had taken.”

Drugs. Again with the drugs. “What kind of drugs?” “I have no idea. I mean, Sandy has to have a blinding migraine before she’ll pop an Advil. You know she doesn’t drink alcohol. She doesn’t do anything.”

Except smoke.

“Anyway, they didn’t find anything. I know that much. Took me an hour to get the place back in order. I couldn’t get over how they trashed our bedroom and living room. I found a scratch on the underside of the coffee table!”

I rolled my eyes. Neat freaks. Incurable.

Martin made me swear I would call him as soon as I heard from Sandy. I promised I would.

Then I got out of bed and hit the shower, choosing a festive red sweater with a plunging neckline and my favorite hip-hugging black pants. I had to look extra nice today, not only because it was a Wednesday and I had to go to work or because I planned on tracking down Zora, the nurse in Debbie Shatsky’s allergist’s office, and then heading off to the shiva with a pink geranium.

But also because this was the day I would tell Stiletto I loved him and that, yes, I would be his wife.

 

Jane sat primly next to me as I drove her to school. I found myself longing for the mornings when she’d be passed out in the passenger seat, one foot up on the dashboard, exhausted from staying up all night parceling out physics problems with her nerdy friends, like Vava’s daughter, Dericia.

While waiting for Burge to return with the preliminary reports on Ern’s death, Vava had let it slip that Dericia had been accepted early admission to MIT. I gushed I was thrilled for her, and in a way, the good, saintlike part of me was.

But the not-so-saintlike part of me was jealous. Shortly before she’d been kidnapped, Jane had been informed that her chances of winning early admission to Princeton, her dream school, were essentially nil. Sometimes I wondered if that was what sent her into this Barbie-doll oblivion, that the kidnapping had been simply an excuse.

“Cheerleading tryouts for basketball are tonight, so I’ll be late coming home.”

Yet one more example of Jane’s post-kidnapping pathology. Never before would she have tried to join the squad—except by the wrists, with rope. And then Lord knows what she would have done with those girls then. Dunked them in chocolate pudding, probably.

“You don’t want to be a cheerleader, do you?” I asked.

“And what’s so wrong with cheerleading? It’s a very athletic sport these days. It’s not like when you were in school and it was just an opportunity for sluts to flash their thighs.”

“Now they flash their
toned
thighs.”

Jane punched my shoulder. “Hey, Grandma showed me the wedding dress she found at Loehmann’s. It’s beautiful! It’s everything a wedding dress should be. Aren’t you superexcited to wear it?”

This was the hard part about canceling the wedding: telling Jane. And as much as I loathed Dan, I really felt I should talk to him first before announcing to the world that the wedding was off.

“Hmm,” I replied neutrally.

“What? You’re not excited?”

Fortunately, we’d arrived at the school. “We need to talk. How about over dinner?”

“I have cheerleading practice until late.”

“And I have a shiva. Okay. Tonight, then. I have something important to tell you.”

She eyed me suspiciously. “It better not be that you’re backing out of the wedding because then I really will lose it. I might even run away. Dr. Caswell says I’m very volatile right now. I could do anything!”

I leaned over her and unlocked the door. “And right now what you have to do is go to class.”

It was early when I got to the newsroom. Well, early for journalists. Only Veronica and a couple reporters were at their desks and they weren’t working any too hard. They were sitting back reading the papers, checking their e-mail, dawdling over coffee. Even the police scanner seemed extraordinarily quiet, delivering a mellow, chatty buzz about broken-down cars and missing dogs.